Archive Collection
Nebula Award for Best Novel Winners
1965–2025
The Nebula Award for Best Novel is one of the highest honours in science fiction and fantasy, chosen each year since 1966 by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Winners include Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Octavia Butler, and N. K. Jemisin.
About the Nebula Award for Best Novel
- Awarded by
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
- First awarded
- 1966
- Country
- United States
- Winner receives
- A trophy rather than money
When it is announced
Announced at the Nebula Conference, usually in June, for work published in the previous calendar year. See the full announcement calendar.
How to enter
Members of the association nominate and vote, so the Nebula is the award chosen by working writers in the field.
Official prize site · Checked August 2026. Dates move year to year, so confirm on the official site before entering.
| Year | Title & Author | Historical Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | The Buffalo Hunter Hunter | The Buffalo Hunter Hunter won the 2025 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and had already taken the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel and the Libby Award.… |
| 2024 | Someone You Can Build a Nest In | Someone You Can Build a Nest In won the 2024 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2025 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the… |
| 2023 | The Saint of Bright Doors | The Saint of Bright Doors won the 2023 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2024 Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Crawford Award and the Ignyte… |
| 2022 | Babel, or the Necessity of Violence | Babel won the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. It… |
| 2021 | A Master of Djinn | A Master of Djinn won the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Compton Crook Award and the Ignyte Award. It… |
| 2020 | Network Effect | Network Effect won the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 2020 Nebula Award and the 2021 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, taking the… |
| 2019 | A Song for a New Day | A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was published in September 2019, several months before the first COVID cases were… |
| 2018 | The Calculating Stars | The Calculating Stars won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award and the Locus Award, one of a small number of novels to take all… |
| 2017 | The Stone Sky | The Stone Sky won the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel, completing an unprecedented run. N. K. Jemisin took the award in 2016 for The Fifth Season, in… |
| 2016 | All the Birds in the Sky | All the Birds in the Sky won the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the Crawford Award, and was a finalist… |
| 2015 | Uprooted | Uprooted won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the British Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award, and… |
| 2014 | Annihilation | Annihilation won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Shirley Jackson Award. The whole Southern Reach trilogy, with Authority and… |
| 2013 | Ancillary Justice | Ancillary Justice won the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the BSFA Award, the Locus Award for Best… |
| 2012 | 2312 | 2312 won the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, the BSFA and the Arthur C. Clarke awards, and was named to the Tiptree… |
| 2011 | Among Others | Among Others won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2011 Nebula Award, and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award and won the British… |
| 2010 | Blackout/All Clear | Blackout and All Clear were published separately in 2010 and judged as a single work, which together won the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the… |
| 2009 | The Windup Girl | The Windup Girl shared the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novel with China Mieville's The City & the City, only the third tie in the category since 1953,… |
| 2008 | Powers | Powers won the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the sixth Nebula of Ursula K. Le Guin's career and her last in the novel category. It completes the… |
| 2007 | The Yiddish Policemen's Union | The Yiddish Policemen's Union won the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award, the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the… |
| 2006 | Seeker | Seeker won the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the only Nebula of Jack McDevitt's career despite a remarkable run of nominations across three… |
| 2005 | Camouflage | Camouflage won the 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the James Tiptree Jr Award, now the Otherwise Award, which recognises fiction that expands… |
| 2004 | Paladin of Souls | Paladin of Souls won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Lois McMaster Bujold is among… |
| 2003 | The Speed of Dark | The Speed of Dark won the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Elizabeth Moon has an autistic son,… |
| 2002 | American Gods | American Gods won the 2002 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the SFX… |
| 2001 | The Quantum Rose | The Quantum Rose won the 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel, along with the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice award for best science fiction novel, a… |
| 2000 | Darwin's Radio | Darwin's Radio won the 2000 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Endeavour Award, and was a finalist for the Hugo and the Campbell. The science is… |
| 1999 | Parable of the Talents | Parable of the Talents won the 1999 Nebula Award for Best Novel, presented in 2000. Octavia E. Butler wrote it in the 1990s and set it in the 2030s,… |
| 1998 | Forever Peace | Forever Peace won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a triple crown no novel had taken… |
| 1997 | The Moon and the Sun | The Moon and the Sun won the 1997 Nebula Award for Best Novel, beating George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, a result that is now the most quoted… |
| 1996 | Slow River | Slow River won the 1996 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Lambda Literary Award. Nicola Griffith is English, moved to the United States, and had… |
| 1995 | The Terminal Experiment | The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Aurora Award, and was a Hugo finalist. It was serialised in Analog under the… |
| 1994 | Moving Mars | Moving Mars won the 1994 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, the Locus and the Campbell. It appeared in the same short span… |
| 1993 | Red Mars | Red Mars won the 1993 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the British Science Fiction Association Award, and lost the Hugo, which the two sequels then… |
| 1992 | Doomsday Book | Doomsday Book was published in 1992 and swept the following year, taking the Nebula Award, the Locus Science Fiction Award, and sharing the Hugo… |
| 1991 | Stations of the Tide | Stations of the Tide won the 1991 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Science Fiction Chronicle Award, and was a finalist for the Hugo, the Locus and… |
| 1990 | Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea | Tehanu won the 1990 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and made Ursula K. Le Guin the first writer to win the… |
| 1989 | The Healer's War | The Healer's War won the 1989 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Elizabeth Ann Scarborough served as an army nurse in Vietnam, at the China Beach medical… |
| 1988 | Falling Free | Falling Free won the 1988 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the first of Lois McMaster Bujold's major awards and the beginning of a run that took four… |
| 1987 | The Falling Woman | The Falling Woman won the 1987 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and Pat Murphy took a second Nebula the same year for the novelette Rachel in Love, a… |
| 1986 | Speaker for the Dead | Speaker for the Dead won the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Nebula Award, one year after Ender's Game had taken both. Orson Scott Card is the… |
| 1985 | Ender's Game | Ender's Game won the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Nebula Award, and its sequel Speaker for the Dead won both again the following year,… |
| 1984 | Neuromancer | Neuromancer won the 1985 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award, and it is the only novel ever to take all… |
| 1983 | Startide Rising | Startide Rising won the 1984 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, an unusually complete… |
| 1982 | No Enemy But Time | No Enemy But Time won the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. David Pringle later included… |
| 1981 | The Claw of the Conciliator | The Claw of the Conciliator won the 1981 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was a finalist for the Hugo and… |
| 1980 | Timescape | Timescape won the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the British Science Fiction Association Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Ditmar… |
| 1979 | The Fountains of Paradise | The Fountains of Paradise won the 1980 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 1979 Nebula Award, his second Hugo Award for Best Novel, after Rendezvous… |
| 1978 | Dreamsnake | Dreamsnake won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1978 and the Hugo and Locus awards the following year, an unusually complete sweep for a book that… |
| 1977 | Gateway | Gateway won the 1978 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1977 Nebula Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Locus Award, taking essentially… |
| 1976 | Man Plus | Man Plus won the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Two years later Frederik… |
| 1975 | The Forever War | The Forever War won the 1976 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1975 Nebula Award and the Locus Award, and it was the first title chosen for Gollancz's… |
| 1974 | The Dispossessed | The Dispossessed won the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award and the Locus Award, the second time Ursula K. Le Guin had taken the Hugo… |
| 1973 | Rendezvous with Rama | Rendezvous with Rama swept its field: the 1974 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1973 Nebula Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, the… |
| 1972 | The Gods Themselves | The Gods Themselves won the 1973 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1972 Nebula Award and the Locus Award. Isaac Asimov wrote it as an answer to a… |
| 1971 | A Time of Changes | A Time of Changes won the 1971 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo and the Locus. Robert Silverberg wrote at an almost… |
| 1970 | Ringworld | Ringworld won the 1971 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award and the Locus Award. It also produced the most famous engineering complaint… |
| 1969 | The Left Hand of Darkness | The Left Hand of Darkness won the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 1969 Nebula Award, and is usually named among the founding works of feminist… |
| 1968 | Rite of Passage | Rite of Passage won the 1968 Nebula Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo. Alexei Panshin was as well known at the time as a critic,… |
| 1967 | The Einstein Intersection | The Einstein Intersection won the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the second of four Nebulas Samuel R. Delany won between 1966 and 1969, alongside… |
| 1966 | Flowers for Algernon | Flowers for Algernon shared the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel with Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17. The 1959 novelette it grew from had already won… |
| 1966 | Babel-17 | Babel-17 was published by Ace Books in 1966 and shared the Nebula Award for Best Novel with Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon, a tie between two… |
| 1965 | Dune | Dune shared the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Novel with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal, the first of three ties in the category's history, and it won the… |